Quarter After One
by AkaruiTenshi
Summary: Collection of various One Shots of various HM couples. Up right now: VaughnxChelsea. Rated T for safety, based on Need You Now by Lady Antebellum. "It's a quarter after one...I need you know..."


**Hey everyone! This here's sort of a songfic following the letter of Need You Now by the amazing Lady Antebellum. This chapter in specific is a gift for my friend HorseGirl784, hope you like it Horsey! Please take the time to read her stories whenever you can! They're awesome! ****Disclaimer: I don't own the song or the characters T.T**

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><p><strong>Quarter After One<strong>

**_Chapter One: VaughnxChelsea_**

It had been about three months since she had moved away from Sunshine Islands and had left her farm to Mark, but most of her boxes remained unpacked. They were labeled in black marker: _'Memories', 'Farm Stuff', 'Gifts', 'His Stuff'_. One of the packages had been thrown against the wall, its contents spilled on the floor.

Hundreds of pictures of brightly smiling people were scattered on the floor, happy memories laughing at her. Old man Taro and his family standing proudly before their home. Mirabelle and Julia brushing the cows and feeding the chickens. Chen and Charlie working at their shop. Gannon and Eliza carving a wooden figurine. Pierre cooking in his kitchen with Natalie. Denny and Lanna fishing at the pier. Sabrina and Regis sitting before their majestic fireplace, reading. Will and Lily walking past the prince's elegant ship. Mark working at her farm. Shea and talking Wada in their home. Nathan and Alisa at the Church. The Harvest Goddess and the Harvest Sprites at the Goddess Pond. Witch and Witchkins arguing. The inn. The diner. The islands. A man in a dark cowboy suit sitting at the beach at sunset…

The last one was hard to look at. Even as she closed her eyes, she could picture him as if it were yesterday when she'd last seen him. Silver hair that gleamed in the light, deep amethyst eyes that could freeze or melt whoever he was looking at. His favorite Stetson lying tilted on his head.

Her heart raced and she bit her lip, looking quite miserable while she sat in a wooden chair in center of the scattered pictures and unpacked boxes. Slowly, one cerulean orb peered at the phone in the corner of the dusty room, staring at it longingly. It was then that her body moved on its own, standing up and walking towards the telephone.

Her small hand grazed the smooth, black surface of the communication device and she found herself mulling over the thought of calling Mirabelle's Animal Shop, just to see if he was alright.

_'I wouldn't be doing anything wrong…Just a friend asking for a friend.' _

But deep inside her, she knew how pathetic that excuse sounded. They hadn't been friends for a long time; everyone on the island knew that.

As she dialed the number, her mind wandered away to where her heart sat behind bars made of fake resolve, strength, and confidence. It was barely floating in its corner; just a few inched from the ground, looking bruised and beaten as it hummed with longing and regret.

"I wonder if I ever cross his mind," it whispered.

Its voice was so soft, that her conscience almost missed as it painfully remembered the picture and anxiously awaited the answer of the phone call.

"For me it happens all the time…"

While she held the receiver to her ear, she vaguely glanced at the clock: a quarter after one in the morning. At this she wondered if they were even awake and if she should even be calling at this hour after she had said she wouldn't call him, but the painful pang at the back of her mind reminded her of her sudden need for him and she held on to the phone tightly.

Her self control was now an afterthought, flitting around in the empty room, unable to penetrate its sole occupant.

_'I just need you now.'_

And with that final musing, she stared out the window and into the starry night sky, gaze concentrated on the bright, half moon that was spreading its glow all across the night bathed world.

Somewhere else, inside a diner, a man was sitting at a bar, asking for another shot of whiskey while his eyes remained glued to the open door where the moonlight was pouring in. He could almost see her come sweeping in, all dolled up in an indigo dress, her auburn hair brought up in a neat bun with one bang escaping, ready for their first date. Her smile stretching her full, rosy lips and her azure pools lighting up when she sees him, already making her way through the nonexistent crowd with a grace he'd never seen her have before.

But she just disappeared in a cloud of moon dust once she was within his grasp and he clenched his jaw and screwed his eyes shut. However, the alcohol had weakened his mental walls as his bruised and near iron plated heart wondered if he ever crossed her mind, for she would never disappear from his.

"Vaughn, we're closing up," the bartender said. "It's already a quarter after one in the mornin', and I need some sleep."

The slightly drunk cowboy nodded and walked out of the diner, hand grasping an invisible counterpart that only he could see. Only he could hear her laughter, feel her soft skin on his. And he missed the real thing terribly.

A devious thought snuck past his alcohol weakened defenses, whispering sweet temptations of the new cellular phone hidden in his pocket and a number he didn't even want to think of. But he lost control of his body as he walked to the beach – the place they'd first met – and pulled the red phone out of his vest pocket.

His conscience was screaming at him to stop, he had told her he would never call her, but he needed to hear her voice, he needed to prove that she still existed to his lonely heart. It didn't know how to survive without its newly found support, and he knew he couldn't live without hearing her voice one more time. But the perpetual ringing of the dial tone seemed endless.

As both lonely souls waited for the other side to pick up, their eyes seemed to water at the endless echo of a phone ringing. A little voice in the back of their heads poisoning their thoughts, telling them that the other wouldn't answer because he/she didn't want to hear from him/her again and that this whole idea was useless. And as the dial tone kept coming, the poison sucked up their hopes, and it hurt and hurt and hurt.

_'I guess I rather hurt than feel nothing at all,'_ they thought.

One heard the voice mail inbox, one hung up; one heard the phone ring while the tears fell.

"Hello?"

At first it was silent before a shuddering sigh echoed through the line and hope began to dominate the poisoning thought and drown the loneliness.

"…I know I said I wouldn't call, but I just need you, Chels…"

A sob.

"Me too, me too…"

"Come back, Chels, it isn't the same here without ya. Even the sun won't shine the same here anymore."

More sobbing and then a watery, "I will, Vaughn, real soon," replied to the plea.

At this, both people seemed to break at the same time and all you could hear down the line was crying. But the tears that glittered in the moonlight were drops of liquid relief and joy as two barred hearts escaped their prisons and returned to their rightful place to heal in the glow of the renewed hope that had defeated the poisonous despair and restored the bond between two soulmates that had forced themselves apart. A glow that made the moonlight look dim and that washed away any inkling of regret and sadness: love.

Days later, the Sunshine Isles reinstated their farmer, a close knit community restored its foundation, and two halves regained each other. It was a reunion that was burned into their memory for the rest of their lives, and the start of a better life. A life that began with a desperate phone call at a quarter after one AM.

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><p><strong>Aaaaand that's our first chapter! *cheers* Next up...Some other couple I have to plot bunny up! x3 Review, please! ~AkaruiTenshi<strong>


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